Marker Pen
by Yggdrasil'sRoots
Summary: Darcy's brain spits out some really weird stuff, and now she has this burning need to see the Avenger's handwriting.


_**My brain is weird. It's the only explanation for this, really.**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own the avengers.**_

Of all the things you consider about superheroes, handwriting is never really something you put on your list of 'stuff to know about'.

But see, Darcy is a little weird, and her brain just ticks over at full speed until all her questions are answered, odd or not. So when she is lying in her bathtub, hot suds slipping over her skin, relaxing after a hard day as the Avengers personal assistant; or as Pepper calls it, their minder, and the question worms its way into her thought process, she merely files it away for later snooping.

It isn't until a week later, when she is bullying Jane into leaving her desk for lunch, that she spies Bruce scribbling something down. Three seconds later, he has completely disregarded it, and Jane is still stubbornly refusing to leave her experiment, so she swipes it.

It's exactly what she expects. Small, cramped letters, hastily penned as his genius brain charges full steam ahead. It's kind of similar to Jane's, with notes in the margin, and some things barely legible because of the amount of corrections and equations littering the page. So she just files it in case Bruce decides he needs it, and goes about her day.

Three minutes into haranguing interns about sneaking into the lab to catch a glimpse of the Hulk, she gets a frantic call from the man himself, yelping about the paper she had moved.

"Hon, you know I file everything, go and look for it." She hangs up swiftly, and goes for lunch alone, smiling at the text he sends her later; an emotional thank you.

Three months later and she has almost forgotten her urge to see their writing, but when she has to force Steve into actually writing his mission report, it resurfaces and she peers over his shoulder as he grumpily scrawls words down.

"Who'd have thought it? Captain America dodges writing his reports." She smiles at him. He glares at the SHIELD form, but keeps writing.

His letters are large and swirly, a smooth cursive that is surprisingly difficult to read. It suits him, she thinks, it's old fashioned, but still beautiful and sophisticated.

It sort of reminds her of the letters her grandpa used to send her.

She runs into Natasha on her way to file Steve's report, and they have a good giggle about their captain and his reluctance to complete paperwork.

The next morning, Steve brings her breakfast as a thank you, and she kisses him on the cheek, leaving a bright red print. He makes a half hearted attempt to wipe it off as she prances away, cackling merrily. Scooping up a mug of coffee and a clipboard with several important forms on, she heads down to the workshop, keying in the code on the numberpad and nudging the door open with her hip.

Tony is fast asleep, cheek pressed to a pile of paper, and a screwdriver in hand. She notes with glee that he is cuddling a hammer, and takes a picture.

For posterity, you understand.

She plonks the clipboard down atop his head, giggling when he bolts upright and fails to catch it, blinking blearily.

"Wazzat?" He asks, flailing about slightly.

"I need you to sign that." Darcy indicated the clipboard, and Tony flips through, mumbling nonsense under his breath.

"Pen?" She slides a biro out of her bun, and hands it to him, smiling fondly at his wrinkled up expression of disgust over being handed something.

He does, however, take it obediently and sign what she needs him to, in trade for the mug of coffee she brandishes at him. Taking the forms back, she glances briefly at the words.

Tony's letters are on a slant, printed surprisingly neatly, in capitals. Not what she would have guessed, but it suits him well enough. Crisp, to the point, no messing around or unnecessary frills.

"Later, Tony!" She yells, leaving the workshop. She receives a grunt in reply, and smiles.

Really, when Pepper said Darcy is their minder, she wasn't wrong.

A few weeks pass, in which she makes Tony invent her a lipstick taser after he makes her watch Despicable Me 2, and Steve asks out Maria Hill, which went better than any of them could have expected, given the huge smacker she saw Maria plant on him while on her lunch break.

She nearly tases Clint with her new taser when he drops out of an air vent one day.

She makes him pick up all the files she flung in her shock.

Then she bullies him into writing his mission report.

"Honestly, babe, you're as bad as Steve." He just shoots her a charming grin and continues writing, twisting his wrist round to make sure he doesn't drag his hand through the wet ink.

For a left handed person, his writing is amazing. Unfortunately, he has written the entire thing in russian. The Cyrillic is beautiful, solid lines of characters she can't read, but despite the aesthetic, she still can't read Russian, so she smacks him around the head and makes him do it again, this time in English. He pouts, but obeys, sticking his tongue out in fierce concentration.

It's almost like calligraphy. Long, swooping letters, curves she thought she only saw in the mirror.

All joking aside, she thinks she might have to make him write her Christmas cards this year.

But she doesn't say anything, just pats him on the head and saunters off to find Natasha for lunch. The red head regards her with an amused stare when she mentions the handwriting, which she ignores in favour of starting a tiny food fight with her skittles.

When she goes to pry Jane out of the lab after picking the skittles out of her cleavage, the tiny scientist is nowhere to be found.

"Thor is back." Bruce tells her.

"Typical. I need to feed her and Mr. Thunder God is off sexing her up!" She exclaims, and spins on her heel, knowing Jane will emerge later.

A _lot _later.

And indeed, a lot later, Jane wanders in to find food, god in tow, both of them grinning like idiots.

Mind you, Darcy supposes that she'd be grinning like that if she had been off having a sex marathon.

She just makes Thor tell her how long he is staying, and asks him to sign the form for SHIELD. It seems they have forms for everything, now.

He squints, scribbles briefly. She draws the clipboard back, thanks him, and he and Jane scamper back to their room, likely to have more sex.

His writing is incomprehensible. It's barely even a squiggle,, and the T is barely recognisable as a letter at all, much less a T. Decidedly not what she expected of an asgardian prince.

Natasha is tricky.

Now that she knows Darcy is curious, she has made a game of making sure not a scrap of her hand writing gets near Darcy.

Over the next week, they play cat and mouse over it, until Natasha is forced to write under Darcy's nose.

Her script is very ordinary, really. Just slightly messy cursive, not massive, not tiny, not even terrible.

Quite like Darcy's own writing, actually.

Darcy swears at her and drags her out to the bar after work.

The next morning, they wake up covered in marker pen scribbles, their own and other people's.

Natasha points out Bruce's writing over her stomach, then Clint's signature across Darcy's buttock.

Even Steve has joined in, slotted in next to Tony's musings. He appears to have used Darcy as a whiteboard. Natasha is covered in Bruce and Darcy's writing, more than anyone else, but Clint has managed to write 'black widow' across her ass.

Darcy thinks Thor joined in, but that could just be where someone's pen slipped.

They can't bring themselves to be angry.

Not really.


End file.
